Of Christmas Past
by Unoriginality
Summary: Steve stopped liking Christmas after waking up from the ice, but when Bucky came back into his life, he decided to give the holiday another try. (Winter Soldier spoilers, written for 4purposes@LJ theme "Just hear those sleigh bells jingling".)


After waking up from being under ice, Steve had stopped liking Christmas. All his friends were gone; Peggy was slowly going senile in a rest home and everyone else he knew were dead. There were the Avengers, and Tony invited him to the company parties, Steve had even actually gone to one, but it wasn't the same. Christmas had just become too commercial, too complicated and too crowded.

But that was before Bucky came knocking at his apartment door.

He still looked like the Winter Soldier, long hair and scruff with a complete lack of ability to speak more than monosyllabic. But he was Bucky. He remembered. Steve wasn't sure how much he remembered, but it was enough for Bucky to come to him, to ask to come home. Steve had told him 'welcome home' before Bucky could decide he regretted coming there, and pulled him into the apartment.

Things quickly became quiet, the two settling into a comfortable routine, Bucky relearning how to live in the world and Steve helping him the whole way. They were like any other domestic couple, although with them, it was more a pair of domestic bachelors trying to not burn the food.

"Why are they playing Christmas music?" Bucky demanded one early November day while they were at the grocery store. Bucky was rarely helpful on these trips, but he invited himself along anyway, refusing to be alone and also refusing to trust Steve buying the food without his input.

"Christmas has become a corporate business," Steve explained, examining a cantaloupe for signs of freshness. "Companies want more profits around this time of year, so they try to artificially lengthen the season to get people to go on buying sprees."

"Things weren't this bad when we were kids," Bucky protested. "What the hell happened to the world?"

"Corporations grew out of control," Steve said, placing the fruit into the basket. "I don't celebrate anymore for a reason."

"You used to love Christmas."

Steve eyeballed the bananas, then decided it wasn't worth it to try to trick Bucky into eating one of those sorry excuses for a fruit. "Yeah, but I woke up without friends. They were all dead. What's the point of celebrating when there's no one to celebrate with?"

Bucky seemed to think about that for a minute as Steve continued to examine the produce. "Are _we_ doing anything for Christmas?"

"Up to you. It'd be nice to have someone to give gifts to again." Steve looked over at him. "I wouldn't expect any presents, I know you don't like going out alone."

Bucky looked uncomfortable. "I also don't have any money of my own. And I was never good at making things, unless you want another mud pie."

That made Steve outright laugh. "I remember that. That was my birthday though, not Christmas. Christmas was the traditional snow down the back of my shirt."

Bucky's lips twitched with a smile that clearly wanted to form and he was doing his best not to let it. "Oh, right."

"Why don't we just hold off on presents?" Steve suggested as they left the produce section for the bakery. "Neither of us are really materialistic, I think we'd just give ourselves headaches trying to buy for each other."

Bucky made a noise of agreement. "What about anything else?"

"Well, I'll have to pick up a tree," Steve said. "They have artificial ones now, they make less mess, and you can take it apart and reuse it every year."

"I don't know if that's pathetic or useful," Bucky said.

"Bit of both," Steve agreed, grabbing some wheat bread off the shelf. "We'd also need decorations and lights for the tree. What do you think? Should we have a proper Christmas like back in the day?"

"As long as you don't put up the tree until December starts," Bucky said.

"Full agreement with you there."

As the month wore on, there were more and more signs of Christmas, even before Thanksgiving hit. Steve had to explain to Bucky why leaving the apartment the day after for anything would be a bad idea.

"What the hell happened to the world?" Bucky said, staring at Steve in disbelief.

"You heard me. There's been cases of store employees getting trampled to death by overeager Black Friday shoppers. I don't leave the apartment the first week after Thanksgiving. It's safer."

Slowly November gave over to December, and about halfway through the month, Steve dragged Bucky back out into public to get a tree and decorations, feeling almost like a kid again. He had his best friend back and someone to celebrate with. It was going to be a good year.

"Everything's made of glitter," Bucky complained, studying a box of ornaments that he'd picked up. "Glitter gets everywhere, how is that cleaner than popcorn strings?"

Steve glanced over his shoulder. "That's a lot of glitter." He gave the gold ornaments a disgusted face. "Do you remember how to make popcorn strings?"

"No."

"Neither do I," Steve said. "We'll check somewhere else for something that doesn't sparkle quite so much."

Bucky gave him a weary look. "When did you become someone that likes to go shopping?"

Steve grinned broadly at him. "It's kinda fun seeing what the modern world stocks that we didn't. The novelty will wear off eventually. In the meantime, why don't you relax a bit? You never used to hate being out in public."

"I also used to be sane," Bucky said, a bit self-detrimentally.

It broke Steve's heart to hear his friend say those words. Bucky was too hard on himself, not forgiving enough of the fact that he was never given a choice in those assassinations. He had said the one that he regretted the most was the one that got away. Steve knew what he meant by that, and kept trying to make Bucky understand that it didn't matter, that was the past and he'd forgiven him before it even happened.

Bucky was bad about listening to Steve, though. It'd take a lot of time and patience to help him finish healing. But Steve was nothing if not devoted to Bucky, and he'd spend the rest of his life helping him.

It actually took some arguing on their part over lights and tinsel; Steve wanted to avoid any patriotic colors, he'd had enough of them as Captain America, but Bucky insisted on star spangled blue for some reason Steve couldn't fathom. But he was glad Bucky was being assertive with him. He'd avoided arguments and fights almost to the point of being even more of a frustration than whatever issue they were disagreeing on was.

So blue it was.

"Bucky, what the hell are you doing?" Steve stared at the small piles of blue tinsel on their floor around the tree.

"Putting up tinsel," Bucky replied as if it should be obvious.

"No, what you're doing is making a mess. What are you doing, just throwing it at the tree and hoping it sticks?"

Bucky looked at him blankly a minute. "Wait, that's not how it's done? Steve, remember, my family never used tinsel, we used popcorn strings. Tinsel was for rich people."

Steve sighed and started picking up tinsel off the floor. "No, that's not how it's done."

"I kinda wondered why that wasn't working."

"You only kinda wondered?"

Bucky looked down at the floor that Steve was quickly clearing of extra tinsel. "They messed with my brain," he said in a quiet voice. "If wasn't about being an effective assassin, it wasn't anything I needed to know."

If Steve could count the number of times he wanted to beat the everloving hell out of various Hydra agents, he'd probably be using scientific notation. Instead of letting himself show his anger, he stood and put an arm around Bucky's shoulders. "It'll come back," he promised. "You're a smart man, they couldn't change that."

Bucky sighed, then handed the tinsel over to Steve. "You do it. I'm going to go pretend I made those cookies we bought."

Steve threw some tinsel at him.

Christmas morning finally rolled around, and Steve was almost as excited as he used to be when he was younger. He'd snuck in a present behind Bucky's back, ordering it from an online store that probably wasn't quite as trustworthy as Amazon, but it had what he was looking for. It sat wrapped under the tree, waiting for Bucky, who was sleeping in an hour after Steve, which was normal. He didn't tend to get to sleep until almost sunrise; Steve had caught him up a few times, wandering around the apartment like a sleepwalker. Steve understood, knew what it was like to have past issues come sneaking up. It was always hardest at night.

Steve had even caught Bucky sleeping on the floor in his room once instead of in his own room. Steve offered to move Bucky's bed in so he wasn't alone, but Bucky had stammered out an apology and retreated to his own room for the rest of the night. Steve hadn't pushed the issue.

Bucky finally came wandering out, looking tired and rubbing one eye. He was still in his sleep pants and tank top, his metal arm reflecting the lights on the tree. He stopped and looked off to some point over Steve's shoulder, clearly trying to wake up enough to say something. "Oh. Yeah. Christmas morning. Merry Christmas, Steve."

Steve smiled. "Merry Christmas, Bucky." He motioned to the tree. "Get your present."

Poor Bucky, he looked so confused, looking under the tree. "Damnit, Steve, we said no presents."

"Relax, I ordered two of them, one's from you to me."

"It doesn't work that way," Bucky protested, shuffling over to the tree to grab the present, then further shuffling to the couch to sit next to Steve.

"It does as long as you have no job to pay for your own things," Steve said, tone light to make sure Bucky knew he was only teasing.

Bucky frowned at the wrapped package. "I'm a wanted assassin, I don't exactly have a lot of job skills to put on a resume."

"Bucky? Open your present. It's Christmas, you are not allowed to wallow on Christmas."

"Meh," was Bucky's response as he unwrapped the small box. The box revealed nothing, Steve had made sure of that. "It's a box."

"Stop being a smartass and open it."

Bucky shot him a look that made Steve almost think that Bucky was about to stick out his tongue at him like they were still ten years old, but Bucky didn't, opening the box instead. He didn't make any reaction as he studied the mid-sized combat knife inside. "Steve, I don't think it's a good idea to give me weapons."

Steve sighed, turning to face Bucky. "Listen to me, Bucky. Just because you did bad things as the Winter Soldier doesn't mean you should run from the idea of fighting. You're good at it, and quite frankly, I find a lot of trouble, so unless you want to be my housewife sitting here wringing your hands in worry when I get into a mess, you're going to need to keep your skills sharp so you can help me. There's nothing wrong with being a fighter. I am."

Bucky leaned back against the couch, not taking his eyes off the knife. "If I start becoming him again, beat the shit out of me."

"I will, then drag your sorry ass home again. I told you, I'm not giving up on you. And I don't think you'll become the Winter Soldier again. Now." He poked Bucky's metal shoulder, which was probably pretty pointless, but it was the shoulder closest to him. "No wallowing. I mean it. It's Christmas, we're going to be happy and watch old Christmas movies from our time. I found a copy of Meet Me In St. Louis online."

"Judy Garland. Did she age well?"

"Not as well as us."

Bucky elbowed him for that. "We don't count."

Steve laughed, rubbing his ribs where Bucky's metal elbow would probably leave a bruise. "Merry Christmas, Bucky."

Bucky smiled faintly. "Merry Christmas, Steve."


End file.
